The present invention relates to a mobile apparatus for the renewal and for the construction of railway tracks by continuous advance comprising a chassis carrying a working tool for effecting at least the laying of new sleepers and/or the removal of the old sleepers, a wagon adapted for transporting, stocking and/or for the handling of the material necessary for the said laying and/or of material resulting from the said removal operation, and a carrying bridge structure having one end carried by a rolling support adapted to roll on an old track during the renewal thereof and on a new track during the construction thereof and the other end of the bridge structure in turn comprises a rolling support adapted to roll on the reconstructed track during a renewal operation and at least one supplementary retractable rolling support adapted to bear on the platform or bed adapted to support a new track to be constructed, the tool carrying chassis being suspended from the said carrying bridge structure above the work zone.
Apparatus is known in which the carrying bridge structure is a rigid wagon whose raised chassis connects to the two bogies. In this apparatus a tool carrying chassis permits in the case of a renewal operation of an old railway track, the removal of the old sleepers, the remaking of the ballast bed and the laying of new sleepers. A system of conveyors and distributors installed on the wagon and underneath the carrying bridge structure permits the transportation and the storing of the old removed ties and the distribution of the new ties to be laid while a rail guiding device ensures the spacing from the track of the old previously unspiked rails and the location of such therealong and the bringing near and laying of the new rails at normal spacing on the newly laid ties, where the new rails have been previously disposed on each side of the said track to be renewed. In the construction of a new track on a previously prepared bed, this same apparatus permits, after deactivating the tool necessary for the removal of the old ties and those necessary for the remaking of the ballast bed, and after the operating of the supplementary rolling support on the said bed, the laying on such of the new ties of the rails of the new track which have likewise been previously disposed on each side of the track to be constructed on the bed and the bringing together and laying at normal spacing on these ties.
This apparatus works satisfactorily not only for renewal operations but also for the construction of railway tracks although it necessitates an adjusting device for curved working for the transverse positioning of the work tool carrying chassis with respect to the longitudinal axis of the carrying bridge structure. In operation as the bridge structure bears by its two ends on the track, the tool carrying chassis necessarily situated between these two ends is offset in a curve towards the inside thereof and it is then necessary to displace the tool carrying chassis transversally in such a manner that at least the new tie laying tool is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the track.
Railway track renewal apparatus is disclosed in Swiss Pat. No. 511,332, in which provision of the previously mentioned adjusting device is avoided by a conformation of the carrying bridge structure in the form of a girder articulated at its two ends to two overhanging brackets of two wagons framing the said girder. In this apparatus, the geometric arrangement on the railway track of the supports and of the articulations of the two wagons framing the girder is automatically established in the curves in a tangetial manner, the projection of the longitudinal axis of the tool carrying chassis suspended to the said girder with the longitudinal axis of the railway track and the laying tool is placed at the tangent point of the two aforesaid axes.
This apparatus provides satisfactory operation for the renewal of railway tracks but it cannot be used for their construction due to the fact of the near impossibility of moving on the bed bereft of track the first of the two wagons framing the girder because this wagon is necessarily provided like the other with two bogies so as to ensure the equilibrium and the guiding of the girder articulated to its overhanding bracket. Moreover, an adaptation of such a structure to the construction of a railway track, if in fact such an adaptation could be made, would be impractical because of the prohibitive cost, maintenance costs and the energy necessary to be expended to exploit such an apparatus due to its size, fragility and weight.
An object of the invention is the provision of a device having a particular arrangement of its carrying bridge structure ensuring in a simple manner, the aforesaid tangent effect of the axis of the work tool carrying chassis with respect to the longitudinal axis of the railway track in curved regions which device is not only capable of the renewal but also the construction of railway tracks.